


Too Hot (Hot Damn)

by TheBrightestNight



Series: Spice Up Your Life [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (bear with me as i try and figure out the tagging system), (literally i have no idea what else to put here), Crack, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24380542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBrightestNight/pseuds/TheBrightestNight
Summary: Alt. click-bait title:Spice, Spice Baby. | Jon likes spicy food. Who knew? The others find out the hard way.
Series: Spice Up Your Life [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762909
Comments: 14
Kudos: 157





	Too Hot (Hot Damn)

**Author's Note:**

> Another crack idea [justletmeremember](https://justletmeremember.tumblr.com/) and I came up with, chatting about TMA and headcanons on discord.

Jon usually went out for lunch. Actually, a more accurate statement would be Jon usually didn't eat lunch. But when he did, he usually went out.

Today was different.

Today, it looked like Jon had brought lunch from home. Something that was a yellowish color, in an opaque plastic container.

Jon was in his office, doing some paperwork. He had taken out his lunch, the container lying open on his desk, a plastic spoon resting in the food.

Letting curiosity get the best of him, Tim stood and passed by Jon's office, glancing through one of the windows at the food. Jon was too engrossed in what he was reading to take note of what Tim was doing.

Then he went over to Sasha and Martin, who were sat at one of the desks for their lunch break. They looked up at him as he sat down.

"Looks like some kind of curry, maybe?" Tim said, sitting down and picking up his turkey sandwich. "Rice and meat, probably chicken, in spices that have turned it all yellow."

"Think he cooked it?" Sasha asked, bringing a fork-full of instant ramen up to her mouth and blowing on it.

Tim snorted. "I didn't even think he could cook, honestly." He was still holding his sandwich, looking at it sadly. "Either way, looks better than my lunch."

Martin nudged him and said playfully, "Then you should go ask him for a bite." He had a grilled sandwich from a cafe near the Institute.

"Like he would actually let me," Tim said before finally taking a bit of his sandwich. "If anything, you should go ask him, Martin."

"Right. Like he'd be more open to me than you."

Sasha stopped blowing on her ramen to say, "Yeah, but we don't have a crush on him like you do, Martin," before taking a bite of her ramen, ignoring the sound of Martin's indignant spluttering as his face turned tomato red.

Tim snickered into his sandwich, only making Martin even more indignant. So indignant, in fact, Martin stood, glaring down at his coworkers. They stopped giggling, afraid they'd taken it too far but Martin's glare wasn't harsh, it was defiant, and his face was still beet red.

"Fine. Then...then I-I will." Martin turned then and strode over to Jon's office. Tim and Sasha watched him go, food momentarily forgotten.

Martin's hand was shaking as he lifted it to knock but now his pride was on the line. It was mortifying enough that they knew about his...crush. If he backed down now after such a bold—well, a declaration, nonetheless, then it'd feel even worse.

Martin wasn't sure his knock was loud enough but Jon answered, "Come in."

Hand still shaking, Martin slowly turned the doorknob and cracked open the door, peeking in.

"Hi Jon," he said, too nervous to think of anything else to say and not wanting to immediately ask to get a bite of his food. That seemed rude.

"...hi, Martin," Jon said slowly. "Did you...need something?" he asked when Martin didn't say anything more.

"Oh, uh, yeah, well…" Martin reached up and scratched behind his ear awkwardly and sidled inside Jon's office but left the door cracked. "I, uh, couldn't help but notice what you brought in for lunch today." Martin pointed to the container. "It looks good." Martin paused to work up the nerve to ask but Jon beat him to it.

He pushed the container toward Martin. "Would you like to try some?"

Martin paused. "I mean…if you don't mind."

Jon turned and reached for something behind his desk before brandishing another plastic spoon and setting it next to the container for Martin to take. Martin's hands were still shaking but Jon had turned back to his papers already so didn't notice that they were as Martin took the spoon.

Stealing little glances at Jon every few seconds, Martin took a small scoop of the rice.

The heat wasn't immediate, only the flavor. But as Martin swallowed, the heat hit him like a punch to the throat and he couldn't help the involuntary cough that bubbled up from his lungs. Martin quickly turned away to try and discreetly cough into his hand.

This grabbed Jon's attention and he looked up at Martin.

"...something wrong?" Jon asked.

Martin turned to face Jon again and shook his head, but he was still stifling coughs, there were tears in his eyes now, and his face was as red as it had been when Tim and Sasha had poked fun at him for his crush. "It's good!" he choked out before turning and swiftly exiting Jon's office without another word.

Tim and Sasha jumped back from Jon's office door and quickly ran back to where they'd all been sitting. Luckily for them, Martin was too busy making his way to the minifridge, containing the small carton of milk they kept in there for tea. Before he knew it, he'd downed the entire thing as Tim and Sasha watched on, dying from silent laughter.

All three of them were too busy to notice Jon had made his way to his office door and was watching all of them, an idea forming.

* * *

The next time Jon brought in his spicy rice dish, Tim and Sasha had decided they needed to try it for themselves. They were positive that Martin was overexaggerating in his reaction. It couldn't have been _that_ spicy, surely. And Jon hadn't had any reaction to it at all. (Which, if they had thought about it just a little longer, would've told them that might have also meant Jon was just used to spicy food and Martin wasn't.)

Tim was the next to try it. The heat hit him almost instantly this time. He was less contained than Martin, unable to even keep a straight face. Before Jon could react or say anything, Tim was up and out of the door. When Jon got to the doorway to his office, Tim had his head in the sink of the small kitchenette, the cold water running on high as he drank as much as he could to cool the fire in his mouth.

Martin and Sasha exchanged a look before they both burst out laughing. Jon simply watched on with a small smile, amusement sparkling in his eyes, hiding how much he, too, was dying of laughter on the inside. He had to keep up appearances, after all, didn't he?

* * *

It was Sasha's turn. And Tim and Martin were waiting for vindication. Sasha had been calling them babies all week for not being able to handle the spice. They were getting tired of it.

They sneaked up to Jon's door and stood on either side, and waited with baited breath as Sasha took a bite.

And waited.

And waited.

Sasha swallowed and smiled. "Oh, that's really good, Jon!"

Tim and Martin's jaws dropped in fear and awe as they exchanged a look with each other.

Inside, Jon smiled and nodded. "Thank you."

"Did you make it yourself?" Sasha asked.

"I did, actually. It's called biryani."

"To be honest, I didn't know you knew how to cook, Jon." Sasha could just barely keep the amusement out of her voice.

Jon looked at her, affronted. "I can cook!" He paused. "Most of the time I just… _choose_ not to."

Sasha decided the best way to respond was to not respond and instead said, "Well, thanks for letting me have a taste."

"Of course."

Tim and Martin were still staring in fear and awe when Sasha exited Jon's office. They didn't even move from the door. And they didn't stop staring, either. Sasha smirked at them as she looked between them before heading back over to their shared lunch space.

It wasn't until she'd sat down did she say, "Like I said: babies."

* * *

When Elias went to grab milk for his tea in the minifridge, only to find it nearly full of milk cartons, he had a moment of pause. It was in this moment that Jon approached, to refill his teacup.

"What are you doing down here, Elias?" Jon asked casually, not looking up from what he was doing.

"Making tea, of course," Elias responded in the same tone, slowly grabbing the open carton and closing the fridge.

"Right." Jon replied not believing it one bit. Especially considering the upper levels had other kitchenette areas that were much nicer than the archives'.

"Why do you have all that milk?" Elias asked after a moment of silence.

Jon couldn't help but smile in amusement at that. "Martin's been stocking up."

"More like stock-piling," Elias muttered. "Do I need to have a word with him?"

Jon's tone hardened. "It's fine, Elias." He paused, and his tone was lighter again when he spoke, "We need them anyway."

At that, Elias finally looked up and over at Jon. "For what, exactly?"

Jon ignored him, taking the carton that Elias was still holding, and pouring some milk into his tea. Elias waited. Jon stirred the milk in before gently tapping the spoon on the side of the tea cup, setting the spoon down on the saucer, and putting the carton back. As Jon went back to his teacup and picked it up for a sip, he finally turned to Elias, meeting his eyes.

"Would you really like to know, Elias?" he asked before taking a sip of his tea.

Elias narrowed his eyes.

* * *

"All that over some spicy rice?" Elias asked incredulously.

Jon shrugged. "It's a bonding experience," he said before his tone turned sarcastic. "You keep saying you think we need to stick together, get to know one another. What better way to do so than over food?" Elias didn't respond so Jon used this as an opening. "Would you like to try some?" He pushed the open container of biryani toward Elias, who'd opted to stay standing in front of Jon's desk.

Elias stared down at the rice, his pride battling it out with his desire to just leave.

His pride won out. As it always did.

Elias forced a small smile. "Sure."

Jon tried not to smile as he handed Elias one of his extra plastic spoons. Or as Elias slowly reached down to scoop up some of the rice with a look of uncertainty flashing across his face before he remembered to control it.

This time, as soon as the food made contact with Elias's tongue, his mouth turned into an instant inferno. He didn't even have time to chew. He even stopped breathing.

Elias wanted to sprint out of there and over to the fridge, fully understanding why there was so much milk now. (And regretting he'd ever asked. But he'd _never_ admit that out loud to _anyone_.)

But he'd be damned if he let some heavily spiced rice ruin the reputation he'd worked so hard to upkeep as head of the Magnus Institute.

Instead, as the food continued to burn on his tongue, Elias gave Jon a polite, albeit strained, smile before carefully turning and slowly exiting Jon's office. Tim, Sasha, and Martin quickly jumped away from the door and tried to act natural—picking up random folders and papers, pretending to read something on a blank desktop screen—but Elias was too focused on getting out of there with his dignity intact to really notice or care about the fact that they'd been eavesdropping.

Somehow, he managed to make it around the corner, out of sight. And as soon as he stepped out of sight, he sprinted to the nearest bin to expel the food from his mouth. Then it was off to find something to cool the raging inferno that was starting to slowly travel down his throat, grateful that his back had been to them so they hadn't been able to see his watering eyes or red face.

That was the last time he would ask about anything they got up to down there.

* * *

Back in the archives, the archival staff—excluding the head archivist, of course—was _losing_ it. They didn't try to hide their laughter even though Jon was still standing in the doorway to his office. He'd gotten up after Elias had left, wanting to see what Elias would do. To Elias's credit, which wasn't saying much, he hadn't gone to the fridge with all the milk.

Jon had bowed his head, hiding his eyes, a hand held up to cover his mouth. Other than that, he made no other noise.

After another moment of listening to the others laugh, and thinking about the look on Elias's face after he'd put the rice in his mouth, Jon turned and went back into his office, quietly shutting the door before letting the laughter he was desperately trying to hide from the others escape. Still quiet, still trying to keep up appearances. But his shoulders shook with it and his eyes watered. He had to sit down on the floor (leaning back against the door) he was laughing so hard.

**Author's Note:**

> Of course a horror podcast would be the first thing I'd write crack fic for. ~~These characters deserve nice things! Give them nice things, Jonny!~~
> 
> Shameless self-promotion, if you want more crack fic, I have an ongoing one about the Jon and Daisy friendship titled Be Gay, Do Crime.
> 
> reblog this one-shot on tumblr [here](https://awayofunderstandingit.tumblr.com/post/619137340362915840/one-shot-too-hot-hot-damn)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! Comments are much appreciate ^_^
> 
> Thank you for reading,  
> TheBrightestNight


End file.
